Razed Grace
by Evaron
Summary: Made to aim at conflicts of one's true desires and other's expectations, used as homework one week:P. Padmé falls from the chaos around her, following her love, as hope slowly diminishes away... Dramatisation of RotS: you might want to watch RotS first.


The thrill of hyperspace travel cooled her spiteful adrenaline unlike any natural remedy. Her weary arms, stiff and devoid of her old youthful energy, felt relieved, her mechanic, frightened heart braced from the unrelenting windstorm of motherhood, of which she was only recently coping with. Padmé looked up at the ship controls and took a deep breath, then rested herself back on the pilot's chair. This news troubled her gravely; and she struggled with all her conscience to delay its bitter revelation for a short while – any length of time to make it more bearable. Already, inside her, she knew that if it was true, all she had sacrificed, risked, was lost. For a flitting moment, Padmé thought of why she was here, how every force of logic, reason and nature bid her not follow this path, and yet she walked so calmly, so clearly, and so proudly down it like this could only be her high-proclaimed destiny. And it troubled her. Somehow she knew. Somehow, she had always known.

Regardless, she did not fit in. It seemed like every dream floating through her lofty mind had suddenly crashed down by Obi-Wan's simple, well-stated supposition – and how it could be true she could not even begin to understand. But for another moment, and almost as if a voice other than her own had whispered it to her, this was not true. She had failed her dreams the first time she saw Anakin – perhaps even earlier. Her fragile, fruitless democracy was imploding on itself in trust of few strong individuals: in centring itself, it succumbed to its enemy. Perhaps it was her fault, after all: the council came to depend on her, and when she stepped away (or leastways had to in her own protection), a void fell where it should not have. Padmé came back to the initial question: was this, her life's work, what she had truly wanted? Did she fight hard enough? Or was the Chancellor too powerful for her alone, before she had ever dreamed of democracy? Perhaps her love had betrayed more than she had imagined, dealt more damage to what she fought for than it had helped. She fell asleep on one of the ship's beds without answers, only questions, and worst of all, rhetorical ones that only reminded one of one's pain.

The heat outside pierced through his dark robes without remorse, but such compromises were well worth the sight before his eyes, of pure destruction. For the first time he had realised the extent of his bitter, relentless hatred, how it would burn into history above each and every man or woman, Sith or Jedi, he had ever laid eyes upon. For the first time he could clearly remember, he felt at home somewhere. He was no slave, no servant, no spy between political policies he had no time nor care to wait for. On this desert land, he was the master, and nothing, not even the dangers of liquid fire or sundered ground, could challenge him. He was above rivals, above politics, and most certainly above society itself; and on his ship, there was nowhere and no one able to resist him. His time in an equal society, or any one that had humble figures like his corrupt masters, had ended. He had his beating heart, his one and only love, and kept to his principles above anyone's orders (in his eyes, at least). For a moment as he turned and first saw the silvery speck of light entering Mustafar's atmosphere, Anakin began to doubt that air of supremacy, to which his eyes darkened and his lips instinctively scowled.

Padmé's soft, gentle arms cradled his shoulders as they met, packing Anakin's layered robes about him. He felt under his spine a tinge of heat, that failed to escape, inject into his back. To what his self-consumed mind believed necessary, this excess was almost unbearable. His smile welcomed her surprise entrance nonetheless, though it broke his brooding trail of thought indefinately.

"What are you doing out here?" Anakin finally asked, still unsure of what to make of her.

Padmé faltered, looking about and below Anakin, as if wishing him to see what she should have never forsaken. "I was so worried about you," she said hesitantly. "Obi-Wan told me terrible things."

The pain in Anakin's mind almost consumed him. Mention of that whimsical pansy whose life he had personally saved on a handful of occasions, here, now, in the damnation of the consuming fires about him while he still breathed, was too much to bear. It was true, he had turned against society, the Order, all he held dear. Except her: but it was for her. To protect her.

"Come away with me," Padmé offered. "Help me raise our child. Leave everything else behind while you still can."

"Don't you see, we don't have to run away anymore..."  
Somehow, in some far off way, Anakin hoped she would understand that thought. How he could turn away from his true self, or what he deemed himself to have become, was... to him, implausible. His life as a slave would soon be over, and she had to see that. But she could not.

"Anakin, you're breaking my heart," the Senator said softly. A tear creased her pale, almost lifeless cheek. Her heart was already beginning to falter, she knew, like she had known for so long that it would. What she had not foreseen before was that now, Padmé wanted it to. Her life as a Senator was over even if the Senate as a whole would return to a democracy. All that mattered, all she longed for, was her children; and in that sense, whether instinctively or naturally, they were her one and only hope, in this whole, vast galaxy. He had changed. She tried to forget the past, her memories, education, scholars, headmasters, teachings, initiative, help, self-instruction. Her education in those painful hours, days and semesters of selfless study, in learning every nitpick of legislation and its lawful extent down to the last formal word, was no more important than the listless room numbers, addresses, and acquaintances' second names, all of which and whom she would never have the chance to use or see again. Society as she had always since known it had no place for her now; it was a long time ago on the other side of the galaxy, and whether it was by a fault of her own, Anakin's initiative, or a misconception neither of them could have avoided, it did not matter anymore. Padmé's true self would be torn apart by society's uncharitable progress, or her love's incompatible replacement; the galaxy would continue. And her dreams would fall to another's arms. 

It was with her dying breath that she realised thus, looking upon her children, their true selves, and their superior's expectations, to what end she hoped she had, somehow, altered.


End file.
